School-Age: Pirates

So, yes, we're discussing pirates this week but we are also learning about the Scientific Method. That doesn't seem to go together, you think? You would be wrong!


1. Reading:
We read "Pirate, Viking & Scientist" by Jared Chapman. Ah, the Scientific Method connection now makes sense! The Scientist cannot figure out why his friends, Pirate and Viking, do not like each other. Throughout the book he tries several experiments to see if he can find a way to make them get along. 

2. Discussion
We talked about the Scientific Method (a brief version of it) and related it back to what happened in the book. We defined "hypothesis", "experiment", "observation", and "results". Jared Chapman has wonderful brief descriptions of each at the beginning of his book. Then we related these parts of the Scientific Method back to what the Scientist did in the book: What were Scientist's hypotheses? What did he do as his experiments? What did he observe? And what were his official results? 

3. Activity
We did a true/false activity next. I handed out true/false sticks - they are Popsicle sticks that have double-sided paper circles on one end. One side is red and the other side is yellow. The kids hold up the red side if they think the statement is FALSE. They hold up the yellow side if they think the statement is TRUE.

The true/false activity was about a variety of facts about pirates and Vikings. 

4. Craft
We made pirate hats based off of the craft I found on the Sand in My Toes blog. I made a template for the front part of the pirate hats. Then I took a legal-sized piece of black construction paper and cut it into thirds for the strip that goes around the backside of the head. For the skulls and crossbones for the front of the hat, I found a clip art picture of one on the internet. 

We used staplers to attach the back part of the hat and measured the kids heads before attaching it in a circle. We let the kids decorate their skulls and crossbones if they wanted, and then they stuck them on their hats with glue dots.

5. Activity
If the kids wanted to know their pirate names before they left for the day, I found a fun 'pirate names' worksheet from the Plucky Momo Blog. They could put their initials on the sheet I gave them and fill in the corresponding pirate name. 


Notes:
This was, all around, a fun program! It worked great to have the pirate name activity as something they did on their own at the end. And the hats were easy enough that the younger kids could do them with a little help and the older kids were not bored. I mean, it was a pirate hat, so it could even be considered somewhat 'cool'.